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Spiraling away at the rate of one and a half inches per year, the moon is only now at the correct distance from our planet to make total solar eclipses possible. The moon has really just arrived at the “sweet spot.” It’s been departing from us ever since its creation four billion years ago, after we were whacked by a Mars-size body that sent white-hot debris arcing into the sky. The moon wasn’t always where it is now, which makes the coincidence even more special. So for maximum amazingness, these bodies must have identical angular diameters-i.e., they must appear to be the same size. Now, if the moon appeared larger than the sun, it could still occasionally stand in front of it, but it would also blot out the dramatic prominences along the sun’s edge, those geysers of pink nuclear flame. This makes the two disks in our sky appear to be the same size. It starts with a bizarre coincidence: the moon is four hundred times smaller than the sun, but it also floats four hundred times nearer to us. No discussion of totality should omit the strange science lurking behind it. Only full totality produces the astonishing and absolutely singular phenomenon that resembles nothing else in our lives, on our planet, or in the known universe. Why travel? The sun being 99.9 percent eclipsed doesn’t sound too different from its being 100 percent eclipsed, right?Īctually, seeing an almost total eclipse is no better than almost falling in love or almost visiting the Grand Canyon. To most people, it might seem that seeing a partial eclipse ought to be almost as good as seeing a total eclipse, and it’s certainly a lot more convenient. In contrast, less than 1 percent of the continent will experience totality. In both the 2017 and the 2024 events, the entirety of the United States and Canada will experience a partial eclipse, so that anyone using protective eyewear will be able to see it by standing outside or by looking out a window (provided that it’s not cloudy, of course). Flames of nuclear fire visibly erupt like geysers from the sun’s edge. In just another few hundred million years, total solar eclipses will be over forever.ĭuring a solar totality, animals usually fall silent. Those fairly commonplace eclipses, which unfold every few years and are never limited to a narrow section of our planet but instead are visible to half the world, are certainly pretty and worth watching. It should also be noted that lunar eclipses, even total ones, do not make this top-four list. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that both these events are indeed accompanied by large changes in the amount of incoming electromagnetic radiation. You’ll often hear that some kind of “feeling” accompanies the visual spectacle. Like the aurora borealis, a solar totality often invokes involuntary gasps and cries of wonder. A big gap separates those two from the rest of what I call the top four natural spectacles, including a rare brilliant comet and a meteor storm, in which more than a dozen shooting stars flash across the sky each minute. While most experienced astronomers would concede that a total solar eclipse is the most powerful, gorgeous, and even life-altering of all celestial phenomena, they’d rate a vivid display of the northern lights as not too shabby, either. The event has an indescribable effect on observers.
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